5.  Bhutan is a remote kingdom in the Himalayas, which borders China and India. According to a census carried out in 2005, the current population is 682,321, of whom 35% are estimated to be ethnic Nepalese. The majority of ethnic Nepalese are Hindu, while the Drukpa, who account for 50% of the population, are predominantly Buddhist.
6.  It is believed that the ethnic Nepalese (sometimes referred to as Lhotshampa”, meaning “southerners”) settled in southern Bhutan in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They were granted Bhutanese citizenship by the Citizenship Act of 1958. In 1988, however, a Government census led to the branding of many ethnic Nepalese as illegal immigrants. There were reports that many ethnic Nepalese who had previously been recognised as Bhutanese were forced to sign “voluntary migration certificates”, thereby forfeiting their citizenship under Bhutanese law. Local Lhotshampa leaders responded with anti-government rallies demanding citizenship and inciting attacks against government institutions. Between 1988 and 1993, more than 100,000 ethnic Nepalese fled to refugee camps in Nepal alleging ethnic and political repression.
7.  Since 1907 Bhutan has been ruled by the Wangchuck hereditary monarchy. Although traditionally an absolute monarchy, in recent years the country has witnessed significant political reform. In March 2005 a draft of the country's first constitution was unveiled, which introduced major democratic reforms. Democratic elections for seats to the country's first parliament were completed in March 2008 and the King ratified the country's first constitution in July 2008.
8.  The refugee population are housed mostly in UNHCR-funded camps in eastern Nepal. In 2008, after many years of failed bilateral talks between the Nepalese and Bhutanese Governments to repatriate the refugees, many opted for third-country re-settlement with the help of UNHCR and the International Organisation for Migration (“IOM”). More than 8,000 Bhutanese refugees have now been resettled. The United States of America has offered to resettle over 60,000 refugees from Bhutan over the next five years, and a number of other countries have volunteered to host a further 10,000. Bhutan, however, has not agreed to the repatriation of any of the refugees. Those who attempted to return to Bhutan illegally were returned to the refugee camps in Nepal by Indian border police. Some refugees managed to cross the border into Bhutan in order to stage protests, but all were eventually sent back.
9.  Bhutan's transition to a constitutional democracy has not been an entirely smooth one. A wave of bombings rocked Bhutan in the run-up to the 2008 parliamentary elections, and security forces believed that a number of insurgent groups from among the Nepalese refugees were responsible.
10.  The applicant was born in 1978 and lives in Huddersfield. He is a Bhutanese national who claims to be of Nepalese ethnic origin.
11.  The applicant states that he was employed by the Bank of Bhutan as an office assistant on 3 January 2000. On 3 January 2001, he was asked to produce a security clearance certificate (SCC). He approached the domestic authorities for the SCC and was refused. He sought the SCC until December 2001 but was unable to obtain one.
12.  The applicant further states that on 12 February 2002, when he attended his village annual census, he and his family were declared non-nationals and ordered to leave Bhutan immediately. When he refused to surrender his national identity card he was detained for three or four days.
13.  The applicant states that he was dismissed from his job with the Bank of Bhutan on 7 May 2002 because he did not have the required SCC. When he went to Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan, to challenge this decision he was told to return to his village and obtain papers concerning his status. He was refused these papers and harassed at checkpoints on his journey as he did not have an identity card.
14.  He states that he was arrested on 22 August 2002 for no reason and detained until 22 November 2002. During this period he alleges that he was beaten regularly with wooden sticks, kicked from behind while suspended upside down, and forced to undertake hard labour. There is no indication that he sustained any permanent scarring as a result. He was released after he had signed voluntary migration papers and was given an ultimatum to leave Bhutan within 48 hours. The applicant left Bhutan for India. He stayed there from 23 November 2002 until 31 December 2002, when he travelled to the United Kingdom. He was met on arrival by his sister and brother-in-law, who had been granted asylum in the United Kingdom in May 2001 and are now British citizens. The applicant's brother-in-law had been a human rights activist in Bhutan and had criticised the Government in the course of two interviews with the BBC World Service.
15.  The date on which the applicant claimed asylum in the United Kingdom was disputed in the subsequent domestic proceedings. The applicant stated that he claimed asylum on 11 February 2003, while the Home Office maintained that it was on 20 May 2003.
16.  On 21 July 2003 the Secretary of State for the Home Department refused the asylum claim. Although he accepted that southern Bhutanese of Nepalese origin were the subject of discrimination, he did not accept that the applicant was of Nepalese origin. He also did not accept that the bank would have allowed the applicant to work for two years without the required SCC. He noted that no evidence had been produced supporting the claim of arbitrary arrest or ill-treatment in detention. The applicant had left Bhutan through normal immigration channels on his own passport and the failure to seek leave to remain in India cast further doubt on his credibility.
17.  The applicant appealed. The Special Adjudicator refused the appeal on 3 February 2004. He accepted that the applicant was ethnic Nepalese but held that that in itself was not sufficient to establish persecution. He did not accept the applicant had experienced the difficulties that he claimed. In particular, he noted that the applicant's visa application stated that he was working for the Ministry of Agriculture rather than the Bank of Bhutan, and contrary to his claim that he was detained between 22 August 2002 and 22 November 2002, his bank book showed wage payments from his employer up to November 2002. The Adjudicator further found that the applicant was not stateless: he had a valid Bhutanese passport and there was no evidence to indicate that he had been declared a non-national.
18.  The applicant appealed to the Immigration Appeal Tribunal. The appeal was dismissed on 20 January 2005 as the Tribunal held that the Adjudicator had been entitled to find as he did on the evidence before him and that no error of law had been made. The Tribunal also found that the question of statelessness would be resolved practically as the Home Office would not remove someone unless his home country would accept that he was a national.
19.  Permission for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal was refused on 21 April 2005 on the ground that the Adjudicator had not made any error of law when he found that the applicant's evidence was unreliable and that he was not stateless.
20.  On 25 July 2005 the applicant made further representations to the Secretary of State. He referred to a report by the chair of the Bhutanese Refugee Support Group in the United Kingdom which detailed the persecution of ethnic Nepalese in Bhutan and argued that he risked prosecution under the National Security Act 1992 for denigrating Bhutan by claiming asylum. He further argued that this risk would be increased by his association with his brother-in law. Finally, he submitted that his passport was not proof of Bhutanese nationality and that the Bhutanese authorities would consider that he had forfeited nationality by living outside Bhutan since 2002.
21.  On 17 November 2005 the Secretary of State refused to consider the applicant's representations as amounting to a fresh asylum claim. The asylum claim had been treated in confidence and no documentation obtained from the Bhutanese authorities to effect the applicant's return to Bhutan would indicate that the applicant had applied for asylum. In respect of the applicant's brother-in-law, the Secretary of State noted that this claim had already been considered by the Immigration Appeal Tribunal. The remaining points in the applicant's representations were not significantly different from the material already considered and created no reasonable prospect of success.
22.  On 13 February 2006 the Government of Bhutan issued a travel document for the applicant which was valid for one month and allowed him to travel from the United Kingdom to Bhutan. The Home Office attempted to remove him on 10 March 2006 but a High Court injunction prevented the removal as the applicant's legal processes were still outstanding. On 25 April 2006 the Government of Bhutan issued a second temporary travel document to the applicant, which was also valid for one month.
23.  On 3 May 2006 further representations were made to the Secretary of State which, inter alia, stated that the applicant's parents had been expelled from Bhutan. On 8 May 2006, these representations were also rejected as not amounting to a fresh asylum claim since no evidence had been submitted in support of the applicant's submissions.
24.  On 18 May 2006 an open letter from Amnesty International was made available which set out the organisation's concerns regarding the return of the applicant. It stated:
“This is the first case of its kind of which the organisation is aware that such a travel document has been issued. It is assumed that this unique travel document has been issued because of a request from the UK government. However, the very fact that [the applicant's] case has been highlighted in this way puts his safety at particular risk were he returned to Bhutan.”
25.  Copies of email correspondence between the applicant's representatives and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees confirm that the latter made representations to the Home Office on the applicant's behalf in or around May 2006.
26.  The applicant sought permission to apply for judicial review of the Secretary of State's decision of 18 May 2006. Permission was refused on 19 May 2006 as the application disclosed no arguable grounds for judicial review. The Deputy High Court judge also found that the applicant's submission that he would be at greater risk on account of the travel document had not been made out.
27.  Permission to renew the application to the Court of Appeal was refused on 23 May 2006.
28.  The same day, the applicant lodged an application before this Court. Removal directions for the same evening were then deferred. On 25 May 2006 the second travel document issued by the Government of Bhutan expired.
29.  On 26 July 2007 fresh removal directions were set for 13 August 2007. On 9 August 2007 the President of the Chamber to which the application was allocated decided to apply Rule 39 of the Rules of Court and indicate to the Government of the United Kingdom that the applicant should not be expelled until further notice.